Navigating folders and files

One of the first things PC newcomers discover is that they are
working mainly with files, folders and shortcuts -- and that it's
important to understand their differences.

Simply put, most items are files, such as pictures, musical
selections, e-mail messages, and the various parts of application
programs. We keep these files in folders, for which icons are
usually identified by little yellow folders. Likewise, folders
often contain other folders.

Because there are so many thousands of files and folders on your
hard drive, those that you access frequently often have shortcuts.
Most shortcut icons are identified by a tiny bent arrow in their
lower left corner. Thus, clicking an Excel shortcut icon takes you
to Excel.exe, which initiates the spreadsheet program.

You can create your own shortcut to a file or a folder by
right-clicking your desktop and following the "wizard" prompts.
Alternatively, you can right-click the target file or folder and
choose "Create shortcut" or "Send To Desktop (Create shortcut)."
Choosing the former will keep the shortcut in the same folder as
the target item, from whence it can be dragged into any other
folder or onto your desktop.

You can create a folder by right-clicking a destination
location, choosing New>folder, and naming it. I have one named
"NCTimes Recent Articles" inside my "My Documents" folder. When I
created a shortcut to this folder, Windows automatically named it
"Shortcut to NCTimes Recent Articles." I changed it to "NCTimes
Recent." You can call a shortcut anything you want by
right-clicking its label and choosing "rename."

If you have a shortcut that points to a particular folder
(named, say, Family Snapshots) you can add photos to the folder by
simply dragging the JPG photos onto the shortcut. Conversely,
however, deleting the shortcut will NOT delete the folder it points
to.

Among the most used shortcuts are "Favorites" or "Bookmarks,"
which point to various Web sites. These shortcuts likewise contain
the actual file name of the target item (such as
"http://www.nctimes.com") and a shortcut name, such as "NCTimes."
They will normally be displayed as the latter in your
Favorites/folders. Right-clicking a site's shortcut name and
choosing Properties will display its actual URL.

All browsers have a Favorites/Bookmarks icon, which points to a
folder containing the various sites' URLs and shortcut names. I am
often asked how to move these folders into another browser and/or
onto another PC. Well, most browsers have Import/Export options
under the file menu for doing this.

However, I find it easier to create and manipulate my own such
folders by right-clicking my Desktop and choosing
New>folder.

Rather than name a folder simply Favorites, I create multiple
folders with specific names like "NCT Columnists," "HTML Info,"
"Windows Vista News," etc.

When I want to save a particular columnist's article, I drag the
little blue IE icon preceding the page's site address (URL) into
the appropriate folder.

These folders can then be manipulated like any other folder,
including being moved to a new computer.

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